The Third Option
by Cinammon
Summary: “I’m through, Severus. I’ve had enough,” he said in a haunted, dispassionate voice. Draco and Severus have a long-awaited one-to-one. Life altering decisions over a glass of brandy. One-shot! NO slash.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own Draco Malfoy, Severus Snape, Lord Voldemort, or even Hogwarts, though I wish I did. J. K. Rowling, creative genius that she is, owns it all! This site has very kindly allowed me to play with her characters and situations for a while, and for that, I'm grateful. Please don't sue me, I'm a poor student and I own nothing you could possibly want.

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The following is a scene I would love to read in J. K. Rowling's books, though I admit despair of ever seeing it. Enjoy and please review...

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Draco Malfoy walked the nearly empty corridors of Hogwarts, scowling at the few students he found on his way. Served them right, the little brats! They should be in their common rooms, it was nearly time for curfew.

It had been three years since he had graduated. He could almost convince himself that the memories of Hogwarts, were memories of a different lifetime; _almost_. Funny how he always seemed to end up coming back here... The answer to every question seemed to lie within these walls...

He stopped, reaching the end of his journey. He shook his head to rid himself from these ridiculous thoughts and knocked firmly on the familiar portrait, not knowing the current password. Its owner had a tendency to change it every few days.

The portrait swung open and he found himself face to face with his old mentor.

"Draco...?"

"Good evening Severus, may I come in?"

"Of course," he said, and moved aside to allow his old student entrance into his private chambers. "What can I do for you?"

The Potions Master closed the portrait behind him and for a split second, Draco regretted coming here. But the feeling was gone before he had time to fully identify it.

"Would you like something to drink, Draco? Brandy?"

Draco nodded.

Severus frowned slightly, seeing Draco's strange, preoccupied countenance, and went about preparing their drinks.

"Leave the bottle out," said the younger man. "I have a feeling we'll both need it."

Severus' frown deepened and he stopped putting the bottle away. Instead, he brought it with him to place it, along with their filled glasses, onto the small wooden table between the two leather armchairs in front of the fireplace, on one of which Draco already sat.

Snape handed Draco his drink and took the other armchair. How many nights had the two of them spent here talking to the early hours of the morning about anything and everything, when Draco was still in school? The frequency of these nights decreased after Draco's graduation, but somehow, for a reason that Draco didn't quite understand, the two of them always seemed to end back here.

Draco cradled his drink and stared dreamily into its amber depths.

"What's wrong Draco?" Severus asked in his deep baritone.

"I'm through, Severus. I've had enough," he said in a haunted, dispassionate voice.

Severus' heart gave a jolt as the old Professor tried to decipher the younger man's words.

"What do you mean?" he asked carefully, not daring to get his hopes up.

"The Dark Lord, being a Death Eater..."

Severus took a quick gulp from his glass to ease his rattled nerves. The harsh alcohol burned its way to his stomach and soothed him. His ulcer would curse him for it later, but he didn't care.

"What happened?"

Draco raised the glass to his lips and savoured the alcohol on his tongue. He stared into the flames and his voice took on a foreign, soft, tired quality as he spoke.

"The Dark Lord sent Crabbe, Goyle and me on the Debonare mission."

Severus nodded.

The Debonares were an old pure-blooded family. They had wealth and they had prestige; everything a wizarding family would want. Their single child was a daughter. Her name was Ophelia, Severus recalled. She had been a student of his, an even brighter-than-usual Ravenclaw. She had caused upheaval in the upper class Wizarding world by marrying a muggleborn. She had not been the first to do so of course. Hadn't James Potter married Lily Evans? And, even worse, hadn't Andromeda Black, married that muggle, Tonks? Ophelia and her husband had had a daughter. The little family was bound to attract Voldemort's attention.

"He put up quite a fight, the mudblood…" continued Draco, the ugly word rolling off his tongue without any malice; with the ease of familiarity and frequent use. "We duelled for what seemed like hours... Curse after curse... He died an honourable death, defending his family.

"His wife ran with, we assumed though we didn't see her, their child, while her husband and I duelled. Crabbe and Goyle ran after her. She barricaded herself in her room. Put so many curses up on that door that Crabbe and Goyle couldn't get it open by themselves. Only when I had finished and went to help did we finally manage to get the door open and, even then, it took every unlocking spell I knew and all of Crabbe and Goyle's brute strength to open it.

"Once inside Crabbe and Goyle went crazy. One of the charms she had used, caused the door to burn whoever touched it and I guess that must have infuriated them. There was no reasoning with them and they attacked her viciously. I left them to it and searched for the child, but I couldn't see her anywhere in the room. I thought the child might be hiding in a different room and I went looking for her around the house. When I came back..."

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_Ophelia Demione, once called Debonare, lay bleeding on the ground. There were too many cuts, bruises and wounds on her body to count, and the indescribable pain of Cruciatus curse after Cruciatus curse robbed her of the voice and will to scream any more._

_She had been violated in more ways than one, he saw from her rumpled clothing. There was blood everywhere, seeping onto the white carpet, yet she still breathed in shallow, rugged breaths as her wide blue eyes stared at him in horror. Clumps of her once beautiful, golden hair lay scattered over the floor. She made a gruesome sight and he suppressed a shiver at Crabbe and Goyle's identical proud grins. She was silently pleading with him but he didn't know what for. And then he heard it..._

_A single sniffle from under the bed.__ It was a quiet sniffle, but it was all it took to alert Draco to the presence of someone else in the room. He was sure Crabbe and Goyle hadn't heard it. He pretended to drop his wand on the floor and bent to retrieve it. He surreptitiously snuck a look under the bed to come face to face with the second pair of terrified blue eyes within minutes. The little girl looked at him in horror. Her pale cheeks were tear-streaked and Draco knew that she must have heard, if not seen, everything. She must have heard her mother's shrieks of pain, Crabbe and Goyle's cruel laughs..._

_"What about the little girl?" asked Goyle behind him._

_Draco straightened up._

_"I looked everywhere. She mustn't have been in the house," he said in a voice that did not betray his tumulus emotions._

_"The Master will not be pleased," stated Crabbe._

_"No, he will not," agreed Draco, "but there's nothing that can be done now about that.."_

_Draco looked back to the barely alive woman on the carpet. She was in so much pain that it was inconceivable. He would do her one last service. He turned his wand and aimed it at her._

_"Avada Kedavra," he said coldly._

_The green light hit her and she felt no more pain._

_"Come on," he said to his two companions. "There's nothing else for us here."_

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Draco downed the contents of his glass and a very shaken up Severus refilled it almost immediately. They both repeated Draco's earlier gesture.

"Why did you tell me all this? Aren't you scared I might give you away? There will be hell to pay…" he said carefully.

"I know you're a Death Eater Severus, and that you have to report me to the Dark Lord. I know that my life is forfeit, but I don't care. I've had enough. I can't do this anymore. I simply felt that I owed you the reasons behind my decision."

Severus felt chilled to the bone by the younger man's words and the completely-void-of-emotions tone of his voice. Yet part of him, couldn't help but look at him with the tiniest little bit of hope.

Severus had taken the strange boy under his wing from his very first day at Hogwarts. There was much more to the blond than what showed on the surface and Severus understood Draco's complex nature only because the two of them were so much alike on the basest of levels. He watched the boy grow in his father's image and he tried to turn him away from the dark path he saw him follow, but his hands were tied. There wasn't much he could do without revealing himself. Draco had gotten the Dark mark on the night after his graduation.

"I won't tell anyone," Severus offered carefully.

Draco opened his closed eyes in surprise. Steel grey met onyx black as the two men looked at each other.

"Thank you Severus," said the blond sincerely, "but you don't have to do that. I know my options. I can go back to being the perfect little Death Eater my father always wanted me to be and pretend nothing happened. Crabbe and Goyle didn't see her, they don't know she was there, they don't know what I did. I could get away with it. Or I can tell the Dark Lord exactly what happened and choose to die a traitor's death. I've made up my mind. I can't, I won't, go back. I'm not leaving myself much choice."

Severus studied his former student just one more time before speaking. He felt satisfied with what he saw.

"There's a third option, you know."

Draco scowled.

"I can't run and I can't hide. They'll find me. You know that!"

"That wasn't what I meant Draco."

Draco looked at his old Professor curiously.

"You can join the other side."

Draco's grey eyes widened in shock.

"I haven't been a loyal Death Eater in years, Draco; since before Voldemort's fall. I'm a spy for Dumbledore."

All Draco could do was stare in disbelief.

"There was a woman, a long time ago; a muggle born. She was the Dark Lord's prisoner for months. For some unknown reason, he actually wanted her to join our ranks, despite her… lineage. They threw torture after torture at her but she wouldn't bend. They broke every bone in her body, then removed them all, painfully regrew them and started all over again. They peeled away her skin and poured acids on her flesh. The raped her, again and again. I've never met anyone of so strong a spirit. I watched her from afar, spoke to her only once, yet the day they killed her, was the day I turned."

"No one can tell you what to do Draco, but I've just told you my greatest secret. What you do with it and your life, is up to you."

Severus sipped at his drink and looked calmly at the young man sitting next to him.

Neither of them spoke for the longest time. They simply drank and thought over all that had been said between them that evening.

"I could give you up," Draco finally said.

"Yes."

"And even if I confessed, the Dark Lord would forgive my actions of this afternoon."

"Probably. But you said you didn't want to go back."

"Why did you tell me?"

"I was hoping you'd take a page from my book. The Light needs as many spies as it can get."

"Dying is easier."

"Infinitely so," agreed the Potions Master.

Draco turned his head to look at him with some amusement.

"You realise that what you're doing is a very Gryffindor thing to do."

Severus' face twisted in disgust.

"There's a lot of cunning and scheming involved. I prefer to think of it as more of a Slytherin thing to do."

They looked at each other some more. Severus held his breath as he watched the boy who had been like a son to him, become the man he always knew he could be.

"I'll do it."

**FINIS**


End file.
